Voluntary anti-scam code wouldn’t stop scams: Shayne Elliott

Labor MP Jerome Laxale pointed out that in the UK, victims of scams and fraud can get back more than 60 per cent of their losses, with more legislation to come to protect individuals from scammers in 2024. However, in Australia, that amount is just 5 per cent or less.

“If I went ahead and wrote a similar code and put it on your desk next week, would you sign up to [a] voluntary code to refund some of your customers in certain circumstances?” Mr Laxale asked, according to The Guardian.

Mr Elliott replied that he would not sign up, with a forthright “No,” explaining that banks are merely the end point of scams and that social media companies and telcos have a lot more they can do when it comes to stopping scammers.

A voluntary code, Mr Elliott argued, “doesn’t stop the scams”.

“We’ve got to do a better job on education,” Mr Elliott said. “We are investing in more technology to stop scams and to detect them.”

Mr Laxale also surmised that any such code as that proposed could well lead to people being more liable to fall for scams.

“Scammers will still make the money. And now we’ve socialised the cost of that,” he said.

The line of questioning came weeks after ANZ announced a raft of measures to combat scams, investing in new artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning capabilities that can detect accounts that are being used to receive money from the victims of scams.

“The challenge is that as soon as we close one avenue, the scammers quickly move to try and open another,” said Shaq Johnson, head of customer protection at ANZ, at the time.

“We continue to invest millions of dollars in new technology. As a result, over the last nine months, we’ve prevented $61 million from going to cyber criminals.”